Happy Father's Day

Can you believe it? I’m blogging twice in so many days! But please don’t get used to it—I have a reputation of procrastination I must uphold! ;)

Today is Father’s day and I wish all the dads and all the father-figures out there a very happy day. I hope you’re celebrating with those that love you and if for some reason you’re separated from your families, I hope that you will be together soon.

As for those whose dads have gone too soon—like mine did—I hope you have memories to cherish of them. I know I do.

My dad passed in ’83.  I was 18 when he died suddenly of heart failure, which I’ve always found ironic because he had one of the biggest hearts around. Now the memories I have may differ from my brothers as well as the viewpoint of someone that just starting thinking herself as a ‘grown up’ but I saw him as a strong man, physically but most in character and conviction.  He was patient and kind but could be so stubborn. He spoiled me like only a father could with his only daughter.

When I was younger, while I’m sure we had many father/daughter moments, the one that clearly sticks out in my memory was taking a drive with him to pick up my mom from work. We’d drive to the subway station, which took him about 15-20 minutes, a fairly short time but the thing was that was ‘our’ time.  Growing up with four brothers it was difficult to get a parents undivided attention. So those 15-20 minutes a day was very precious to me. We could talk about anything--I could ask anything and nothing was too silly. Sometimes we didn’t need to say a thing and we just knew that it was nice being in each other’s company.  Oh man, I used to resent it when my little brother would tag along. I loved the bro but like I said this was my time with dad.

Dad was also on top of world events and politics—never a day went by when he didn’t start off reading the newspaper or seeing the news at the end of the day. As a result, he was a very social person and loved to meet and talk to people. (An aside about this, I didn’t know until after my dad passed that he was such a ‘social butterfly’, it was when neighbours would stop me to give condolences and tell me how they will miss him and that he used to talk to them every afternoon as he took his daily walk, that I realized just how many people he touched.)

Dad loved to garden.  But I’m not talking about a couple of straightforward beds of flowers. Oh no, he cultivated some of the most beautiful rock gardens one would ever see outside of an ‘official’ garden.  I have yet to know anyone that has ever come close to what he could do with dirt, rocks and flower seeds. Our back and front yards had some of the prettiest flowers I have ever seen. He was creative and his eye and mind could ‘see’ the potential of what would be beautiful. Not sure if gardening was where he got his patience but I’m pretty sure it played a strong part of it.

I’m not sure about others that have lost their dads and while there are many things I missed about him, the two things that I missed the most, especially when he was first gone, were hearing his footsteps on the stairs—I could tell distinguish everyone’s footsteps, mom being light and spritely to my brothers’ always racing up and down the stairs to dad’s, solid and heavy and sure. It was very strange when all of a sudden I didn’t hear it any more. Very strange and very sad.

The other was my dad’s voice.  He had one of the deepest voices one would ever hear. Even my oldest brother with his very deep timber didn’t come close.  LOL dad rarely had to raise his voice to get his message across but man oh man, if you didn’t know him you’d probably shake in your shoes! But I hate that now I can’t remember how he sounded as I used to do.

He left my life much too soon but I was lucky in the fact that I had no doubt of his love for me. Today I honour him and I hope he knows how much I still miss him, especially on this special day.

‘Til next time,

Jacs xx